Thanks, Ian- I will give it a shot. It would be nice to start with something, even if I need to hack with it a bit to make it work. Next stop, working PIC-PG3 under linux!by rmadams - Controllers
Wow! That is great thanks! I think I will try to translate that into C and give it a shot on my linux box. Do you know if there is a workable BASIC interpreter on that platform, especially one that can run QBASIC programs?by rmadams - Controllers
PeterUK- I did order/build/try the PG3 on linux, and after several (many) frustrating days trying to make it work on a range of linux platforms, finally gave up and took it over to a friends house and used an XP box, which worked first time out. This demonstrated three important things: (1) the PG3 worked great, (2) the RepRap firmware package was fine and (3) I will have to endure my friend'sby rmadams - Controllers
Just discovered this posting- I live in the DC area, and I have been building a RepStrap machine, leadscrew and steppermotor driven. You can see some pictures of it under construction on Flickr at: and I gave a presentation on the RepRap project and my machine at DorkbotDC ( ) this January. I would love to participate in a local group working on RepRap projects!by rmadams - Baltimore/Wash. DC (and environs) RUG
I think that this is a fascinating concept. There has been some really interesting work at the "macro" end of the scale - see: for a paper on the subject. I am sure that many of the long-timers on this forum have gone over this many times before... :-)by rmadams - General
Has anyone successfully built the PIC toolchain using SDCC yet? If not, can we coordinate our efforts to sort out the issues? Otherwise, is the plan to shift all of our efforts to the Arduino, as Zach has been suggesting? Of course, I just got my PIC programmer, but I want to work where I am actually helping out...by rmadams - RepRap Host
That is _hilarious_. The idea sounds like a winner for the RepRap project - who shall we get to play the coach role? Forrest?by rmadams - General
Is the plan to have a single Arduino with a stack of stepper motor control shields, one atop another? I think that would work out well, especially since you could hook the stepper drivers up to a single nice big heatsink, which would also serve to keep everything aligned nicely.by rmadams - Controllers
Note that the link only is for the desoldering attachment: >You'll also need > > 45-Watt Desoldering Iron (640-2060) Just in case someone gets too enthusiastic and clicks on the link!by rmadams - Controllers
I found this today- it is a pretty interesting IDE for PIC microcontrollers based on the Eclipse platform. Anyone used it yet? I note that it uses rhe MPLAB toolchain out of the box, but I wonder if it can be reconfigured for the GNU toolchain...by rmadams - RepRap Host
Wow! Thanks, Justa! Your advice is great- I have ordered a PIC-PG3 programmer from MicroControllerShop, which seems to be exactly what you described - minimal, David Tait type design, very simple. Also along the lines of your suggestion, I bought a ZIF socket along with it. Once I get it, I will try out the toolchain and downloading tools you suggested.by rmadams - Controllers
I have been using the Arduino for quite a while, and I have found it to be remarkably robust to date. My wife and I are using it for teaching robotics to grade school kids, so it is also very, very easy to use. In case anyone wants to hack around with one, they can be had in kit form for 15$US each (one at a time - less in quantity 4+) from: I am going to take a look at what Zach has posted aby rmadams - Controllers
In my experience, the best stepper motors (and many of the associated components) are found in dot matrix printers. Up 'till the mid-80s, the tractor drive for the fanfold paper (remember that? ) had some fairly powerful motors. I have a stack of steppers I took from, if my memory serves me right, a pile of broken old Apple Imagewriter IIs that I got at the MIT electronics flea market a few yeby rmadams - Reprappers
> here i have a link (site in german) to a stirling-engine made of sheets of > paper, aluminium and membranes: Thanks, Victor! That is exactly what I had in mind! As Mike said, an engine made without very close tolerances will not be very powerful, but for a first-generation RepRap, it is a cool way to start...by rmadams - General
I, for one, have found that my work on a RepStrap, built from marine plywood and basic big-box hardware parts allows me to get started on the project, test the boards and extruder, and actively participate right away. The cost for the whole endeavor is still under $300, and almost all of that will get resued on the RepRap once I build it. I am only out a half-sheet of plywood, a couple drawer slby rmadams - General
How about building a sterling engine? You can build some sterling engines without tightly machined parts.by rmadams - General
Acutally, I have been thinking a lot about the kinds of mechanical constructs that we will be able to build via FDM- especially interesting is the material from the book _507 Mechanical Movements_ (see for a free online version, in PDF) which has a whole range of interesting gear trains, etc., much of which we should be able to reproduce in the object library. I imagine having something like thby rmadams - RepRap Host
Thanks, Zach. How about flagging the develment site with a watermark or big red text warning of the fact that it is a testing sandbox, with a link to the current production site? I am sure there are (at least some) other people who are as stupid as I am...by rmadams - Reprappers
Wow! Thanks for the tip. You should add that to the Wiki, so that everyone can take advantage of your hard experience!by rmadams - RepRap Host
Uh oh. I appear to have been using the old sandbox page instead of the current page. Given that I just ordered a big bunch of parts from Mouser based on the parts listing from that site, I wonder what surprises are in wait for me now! The listing you linked to is perfectly correct.by rmadams - Reprappers
Although the BOM generator has been updated, I got the same obsolete part: 538-39880-0102 (buy) 2 pin .200" connector from the BOM entry for the Universal Controller v1.2. Does the system recognize the same part regardless of which board it is in? If not, it might be nice to treat those subsitutions automagically, so that when a change is made on one board, it can propogate through the sby rmadams - Reprappers
Wow! Thanks! Great suggestions! I took a look at your links, and they look great for the people using Windows. My goal, though, is to come up with a way to program the PICs completely under Linux. I have had mixed success with programmer software under emulators, and I would like others to be able to do the same without undue fiddling. Ultimately, a complete Linux toolchain would allow deveby rmadams - Controllers
Thanks to Zach, I have the boards, extruder and extruder parts. While I wait for some of the electronics to come in, I have put together a repstrap cartesian robot with which to build the first revision of a Darwin-class machine. I made mine out of plywood and MDF with a deck of white laminated MDF. I am testing with stepper motors (currently testing the setup using linux-EMC and a set of linby rmadams - Reprappers
Thanks for the info! Can you share what hardware programmer(s) you have used? Did it work to program the RepRap firmware on the spec'd chips? I am working on solving this problem for myself also, and have also found the documentation to be a little limited in that regard- as soon as I get it to work, I will fill in some of the details. :-)by rmadams - RepRap Host
Has anyone had any success with a particular PIC programmer and software under linux? I have seen that folks use the PIC-PG3, but I have not been able to locate any software for running it under Linux. Any suggestions would be welcome!by rmadams - Controllers